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The Evolution of the New Standard

About Adam Koska

Adam is an experienced player from the Czech Republic who has a number of high-profile finishes under his belt:

9th at Worlds 2009

9th at Pro Tour Kyoto 2009

45 Lifetime Pro Points

Top 32 GP Vienna 2008

Top 64 GP Krakow 2007

Three times Czech Nationals Top 8

The Evolution of the New Standard

Hello and welcome! Today,
we’re going to have a look at the results of some of the first major Standard
tournaments with Return to Ravnica. It’s been a little over two weeks since the
prerelease and even in this short time, two Standard SCG Opens have taken place
– first in Cincinnati and then in Providence just this past weekend –, so we
have plenty of information to chew on. In today’s article, I’m going to go
through some of the most successful and interesting decklists and share my
thoughts about what the format looks like so far, and what the crucial aspects
of the brand new format are.

Even though there are
obviously some frontrunners in the new format, it still seems to be quite
diverse, judging by the results of the two SCG Opens. This is the aggregate
archetype breakdown of the top8s of the two tournaments:

Lurking closely behind the
top8s were also such decks like mono-red burn, Bant control or Esper tokens.

So what does this archetype
breakdown tell us about the format? Well, first of all, the variation between
most decks is really big, but this was caused mostly by how few testing time
all the players had and also by the fact that there was almost no solid source
for decklists online, so everybody had to rely on their own judgment. However,
this is something that always happens right after a major shift in the
composition of a format and it’s clear that the lists are going so stabilize
and consolidate in the coming weeks.

Another thing that you can
notice about the composition of these sixteen decks is that only three of them
could be labeled as „control decks“. Two more could very well fall into the
„combo“ bracket, although neither of the two Reanimator lists really runs a
full-on two-card combo engine (something that we haven’t seen in Standard since Splinter Twin rotated out). Instead, both Reanimator decks run midrange cards
like Thragtusk and Restoration Angel, in addition to the „combo“ engine of Unburial Rites. But even if we label these two decks as „combo“, that still
leaves eleven of the sixteen top decks in the aggro/midrange category of decks
whose game plan revolves around attacking with small to medium sized creatures
for the win. Some of the Jund decks use a bit of ramping (Farseek) and are a
bit more concerned about the mid-game than the early-game, but none of them is
a true „ramp“ deck that would continue in the legacy of Primeval Titan decks. None
of these decks really try to „go over the top“.

What this means is that
post-RtR Standard seems to be a heavily creature-dominated format. The only
decks not playing many creatures are the „control decks“, but even these
usually have a fairly proactive plan, as being „control“ mostly means „playing
planeswalkers“ these days. This is probably the most successful of the control
decks that we’ve seen so far, a U/W/R control list that Todd Anderson used to
win the first SCG Open with:

Apart from the red splash,
all of the U/W control decks seem to be quite similar. They all play Entreat the Angels as the finisher, which is understandable, as most of the lists include
a playset of Azorius Charm and Think Twice, which allow you to cheaply trigger
your miracles in the opponent’s turn (Terminus is obviously also present as the
default sweeper card). Some lists even go as far as playing Thought Scour. The
main source of card advantage in these decks seems to be Jace, Architect of Thought and all three of the top-finishing control decks play this planeswalker
as a four-of. I wouldn’t be surprised to see his price go even higher than
where it is right now, considering his popularity and the fact that many decks
need a full playset.

U/W(r) control seems to be
the first deck established in the new format and Jund is probably the next one,
which can’t come as a big surprise, as the deck was almost everywhere in
Innistrad Block constructed. The key pieces of all four of the Jund decks are Huntmaster of the Fells, Thragtusk, Olivia Voldaren and then loads of removal. Farseek is also present in the full playset in all of the lists, which is understandable,
as it both fixes the three-colored deck’s mana (searching for any dual) and
accelerates into the more expensive cards. Here’s the list that Elliott
Volchesky used to post a top4 finish at the SCG Open in Providence this past
weekend:

This particular deck runs
Liliana as the only planeswalker of choice, but the other Jund lists spot
various planeswalkers – Garruks of all kinds and even Vraska the Unseen, in the
case of Nicholas Heal. It turns out that removal and planeswalkers goes very
well together, since role-players like Garruk, Vraska or Jace are really good
at taking over the board once you put out the opponent’s pressure.

So how does this deck cope
in the current metagame? From all these anti-aggro cards, you can probably tell
that its chances tend to be pretty good against creature decks. Being „bigger“
than the „small“ aggro decks, Jund can completely demolish any archetype which
relies on creatures above anything else. Traditionally, decks full of removal
tend to be weak against control and I think that this holds true even this time
around, but fortunately for Jund, Duress was reprinted in M13, so if you want
to be prepared against control, it’s easier than in the almost discard-free
world of pre-RtR Standard. And as for combo (Reanimator, in this case), if you
want to beat it, you will – even without Nihil Spellbomb, there is still enough
graveyard hate around in Cremate, Grafdigger's Cage, Deathrite Shaman or even Slaughter Games. All in all, I must say that I really like Jund’s position in
the new Standard.

Next, we have Reanimator,
the only true „combo deck“ in the format. The base three colors are green,
black and white, since you really need the engine of Grisly Salvage, Mulch and Unburial Rites. Lingering Souls obviously also come in handy when you’re doing
a good deal of self-milling. In addition to these three colors, red is also very
much viable, mostly for Faithless Looting, but possibly also for some removal
like Dreadbore. This is the four-color list that Chris Weidinger piloted to a
2nd place finish at the first post-RtR SCG Standard Open:

Angel of Serenity is a
staple in the vast majority of all the Reanimator decklists that you could find
anywhere and can enable a never-ending loop of recurring Angels, once you hit
seven mana (which shouldn’t be that hard with all the Mulches in the deck). The
three color version is a little better prepared to actually hardcast the Angel,
as it runs Avacyn's Pilgrims and Arbor Elves and I have to admit that this
approach seems a bit better to me, especially since you also have space in the
manabase to fit in Gavony Townships and just go aggro with all your small
dudes. The three color version generally tends to be a lot more midrange, with
stuff like Restoration Angel (guess that she’s still good with Thragtusk, even
if she can’t blink Angel of Serenity) and Borderland Ranger. If you’re
interested in „going off“ more often, then the four-color version is probably
the deck for you: with a set of Faithless Looting, you’re bound to find your Unburial Rites a lot more often, which means that you can even play some
threats that you would have a hard time hard-casting, like Grislebrand.
However, be prepared for a bit less of stability. It’s always been like this:
if you push harder in the „power department“, consistency comes out a bit short
and you’re also going to suffer more from hate. If you increase the
consistency, your power level is bound to be lower, but hate cards generally
won’t hurt you as badly. The three color versus four color version of
Reanimator clearly shows how this dilemma works.

The last of the „big four“
decks in the new Standard is Zombies. As the results have shown, you can either
take the path of black-green or black-red. Or you can accept the motto „greed
is good“ and include all three colors, resulting in a „Jund Zombies“ deck,
probably close to what Ryan Forsberg piloted to a 6th place finish at the SCG
Open in Cincinnati:

The manabase is a bit
ambitious, since you can’t really play any land that doesn’t produce black, but
with eight red sources, eight green sources and a Cavern of Souls that can occasionally
name „Vampire“ in order to land a Falkenrath Aristocrat, it’s actually not the
worst manabase ever and could work. Sure, sometimes you won’t have red for your
burn spell, but we’re talking about trading consistency for power here again
and if the power that you get is high enough, than the calculated risk might
pay off. It certainly seems to have paid off for Ryan in Cincinatti.

There are numerous ways how
to build a Zombie deck in the current format. I’ve already mentioned that
choosing the right colors is a lot harder than it was before (and it wasn’t
even that easy in the first place), but there are more decisions to be
made when constructing a Zombie list. How aggressive will your curve be? All
the color combinations now have access to aggressive one- and two-drops that
aren’t Zombies. Are you going to include them or will you put all the emphasis
on the Zombie tribe? Rakdos Cackler and Rakdos Shred-Freak are both pretty
efficient and likely better than some of the Zombies that often fill their
respective slots, but how many Zombies can you cut before you hurt the deck too
much? If you look at some of the decklists that have been finishing well
lately, you’ll find out that even the top Zombie players haven’t really found a
consensus just yet.

I’m sure that we’ll start
to understand the format better eventually and with every result of a major
Standard tournament, we’ll have a chance to correct our opinion on where the
format is going. Right now, I think that the four archetypes that I’ve talked
about today are the most important ones. How the format will evolve, we’ll see.

Comments

Anonymous

Mon, 10/15/2012 - 20:46

I have seen a number of WUG angel ramp control decks that seem to be doing well at FNM's etc. I have a feeling that once the format is more defined that deck will slide it's way into the top lists because it has access to so much power.... but it will also need to have a better defined format an will take time to develop a strong decklist that can handle most if not all decks... but it is there!

The year 2013 is almost
over, and before we enter the next season with its numerous GPs, PTs, and tons
of new cards that will see print, I would like to use this opportunity to look
back at the past twelve months and talk about what has happened.

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